Superbugs have doctors urging patients not to use antibiotics

Drug-resistant infections becoming more common

The ‘superbug’ that’s been resistant to antibiotics has been seen in several cases in Kansas City.

KSHB

KANSAS CITY, KS - You may not hear what you want during your next doctor's visit.

"It's very hard sell to a parent who has a sick child in front of them to say. ‘Yeah, we kind of changed how were doing things,'" Dr. Steve Lauer, a pediatrician at the University of Kansas Hospital, said.

More doctors like Lauer are becoming anti- antibiotics.

"There's the whole problem in the community of generating these superbugs by exposing them over and over again to antibiotics," he said.

Forget your traditional strep throat. Those same bacteria can now turn into something that no current antibiotic can cure.

Carbapenuem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) is the new superbug in town-- and it's making things tougher for doctors.

"You don't know what's going to work," Dr. Rebecca Horvat, a professor and microbiologist at the University of Kansas Hospital, said.

CRE isn't as common in Kansas City as in other parts of the country, but that doesn't mean we're resistant.

That's why technicians at KU hospital are making sure to continue monitoring every sample they get.

"In some ways we are lucky," Horvat said. "But we are seeing them."

That's why Dr. Lauer has a new message for his patients.

"They will get better on their own and in the end be healthier if we don't expose them to antibiotics," Lauer said.

He hopes that can be the super cure.

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